On the Last Day

On the last day of the year...

"When the horns wear thin
And the noise, like a garment outworn,
Falls from the night,
The tattered and shivering night,
That thinks she is gay;
When the patient silence comes back,
And retires,
And returns,
Rebuffed by a ribald song,
Wounded by vehement cries,
Fleeing again to the stars--
Ashamed of her sister the night;
Oh, then they steal home,
The blinded, the pitiful ones
With their gew-gaws still in their hands,
Reeling with odorous breath
And thick, coarse words on their tongues.
They get them to bed, somehow,
And sleep the forgiving,
Comes thru the scattering tumult
And closes their eyes.
The stars sink down ashamed
And the dawn awakes,
Like a youth who steals from a brothel,
Dizzy and sick.

-- New Year's Dawn - Broadway
Sara Teasdale (1884 -1933)"


Or would one in sober humility and contrition, really hear and heed the Lord's call to unconditional grace and mercy...

37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

-- John 7:37-38
New American Standard Bible (NASB)